BENTON v. SHELLNUT

Filing 67

ORDER OF DISMISSAL. Granting 60 Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim. The plaintiff's complaint and this action are DISMISSED with prejudice. The clerk shall enter judgment stating: "All claims are dismissed with prejudice. Signed by SENIOR JUDGE WILLIAM STAFFORD on 12/6/12. (pll)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
TALLAHASSEE DIVISION

CHRISTOPHER J. BENTON,
Plaintiff,
v.

4:10cv578-WS

SERGEANT JAMES YON,
Defendant.

ORDER OF DISMISSAL
Before the court is the magistrate judge's second report and recommendation
docketed October 22, 2012. See Doc. 64. The magistrate judge recommends that
the defendant's motion to dismiss (doc. 60) be granted in part and denied in part.
The defendant has filed objections (doc. 65) to the magistrate judge's report and
recommendation, and the plaintiff has responded (doc. 66) to those objections.
This court has determined that the defendant's motion should be granted in toto.
I.
The plaintiff's allegations were summarized by the magistrate judge as follows:
[O]n October 1, 2010, there was a massive shake down at Wakulla
Correctional Institution (Annex). The inmates were directed to strip down
to their boxers and slides only, and when Plaintiff and his cell mate left
their cell, Plaintiff was asked, "why are you not wearing boxers?" Plaintiff,
who was wearing blue shorts, answered, "I don't have any, sir." The
officer told Plaintiff he was going to "[expletive] your room up." While the
inmates were downstairs waiting for the shake down to end, an officer
confirmed with Plaintiff's cell mate which locker was his, and "stated after
being informed, 'That's all I wanted to know.' "

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When Plaintiff returned to his cell, he found "all of his legal work had
been thrown all over his cell floor; his Holy Qu'ran was thrown on the floor
to where the cover was butterflied open with some of the pages torn and
crumbled up." Plaintiff's glasses were thrown away and his "prayer rug
had been thrown to the floor drenched in water from Plaintiff's water bottle
which the Officer intentionally poured out." As the officer was closing his
door, he said to Plaintiff, "I didn't know you were one of them." Plaintiff
asked, "What do you mean, I'm not in a gang." The officer responded,
"Not a gang member, a Muslim," and he smiled "in a belligerent manner."
Doc. 64 (cites to the complaint omitted).
The plaintiff thereafter filed this lawsuit, seeking nominal and punitive damages
as well as a declaration that the acts described in his complaint violated his rights to
equal protection and freedom of religion under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to
the United States Constitution. This court finds that the plaintiff is entitled to none of the
relief requested.
II.
Among other things, the defendant maintains that he is entitled to qualified
immunity from suit. The Supreme Court has held that government officials generally are
shielded from liability for civil damages unless (1) the complaint, viewed in the light most
favorable to the plaintiff, alleges facts which, if proven, would show that an officer
violated a constitutional right; and (2) the right was "clearly established" at the time of
the alleged misconduct. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 223, 201 (2001), modified by
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009) (holding that courts may begin the
qualified-immunity inquiry by deciding the second prong first).
The court will assume, for the sake of argument only, that the alleged facts, if
proven, would show that the defendant violated the plaintiff's First and Fourteenth
Amendment rights. The plaintiff has nonetheless failed to carry his burden on the

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second prong of the qualified-immunity inquiry—that is, he has failed to show that
established law put the defendant on notice that his conduct was clearly unconstitutional
under the particular circumstances alleged.1 See Terrell v. Smith, 668 F.3d 1244, 1250
(noting that once an officer demonstrates that he was acting in his discretionary
capacity, the plaintiff bears the burden to show that the officer is not entitled to qualified
immunity).2
The Eleventh Circuit recently described the ways in which a plaintiff may show
that the contours of a right were clearly established:
First, [he] may show that "a materially similar case has already been
decided." Mercado v. City of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1159 (11th Cir.
2005) (citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73
L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). Second, [he] can point to a "broader, clearly
established principle [that] should control the novel facts [of the] situation."
Id. (citing Hope [v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002)]). Finally, the conduct
involved in the case may "so obviously violate[ ] th[e] constitution that prior
case law is unnecessary." Id. (citing Lee [v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1199
(11th Cir. 2002)]).
Terrell v. Smith, 668 F.3d 1244, 1255–1256 (11th Cir. 2012). To make the required
showing, a plaintiff must point to law as interpreted by the United States Supreme
Court, the Eleventh Circuit, or the Florida Supreme Court. Mercado, 407 F.3d at 1159.
A "materially similar case" is one in which the Supreme Court, the Eleventh
Circuit, or the Florida Supreme Court "has said that 'Y Conduct' is unconstitutional in 'Z
Circumstances.' " Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1351 (11th Cir. 2002). In other

1

The plaintiff has not alleged that the defendant's conduct was unlawful under
state or federal statute.
2

There is no dispute in this case that the defendant was acting within the scope
of his discretionary capacity as a correctional guard when the alleged wrongful acts
occurred.

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words, it is a case that is "tied to particularized facts." Id. Here, the plaintiff has pointed
to no cases involving facts "materially similar" to the facts alleged in this case.
Moreover, neither the magistrate judge nor this court has been able to locate any case
in which the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, or the Florida Supreme Court
determined that an inmate's First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated by a
correctional officer who, not knowing the inmate's religion, said he was going to "f... up"
the inmate's cell, then intentionally threw the inmate's legal work "all over his cell floor,"
threw away the inmate's glasses, threw the inmate's Holy Qu'ran on the floor "to where
the cover was butterflied open with some of the pages torn and crumpled up," threw the
inmate's prayer rug to the floor, and emptied the inmate's water bottle on the rug.3
As acknowledged by the magistrate judge, the absence of a "materially similar
case" is not necessarily fatal to the plaintiff's claim against the defendant. Occasionally,
the words of a federal constitutional provision may be "so clear and the conduct so bad
that case law is not needed to establish that the conduct cannot be lawful." Id. at 1350;
see also Terrell, 668 F.3d at 1257 (explaining that an official's conduct may lie "so
obviously at the very core of what [a constitutional provision] prohibits that the
unlawfulness of the conduct was readily apparent to the official, notwithstanding the lack
of case law"); Priester v. City of Riviera Beach, 208 F.3d 919, 927 (11th Cir. 2000)
(noting that "the clearly-excessive-even-in-the-absence-of-case-law standard is a
difficult one to meet" and is a "narrow exception" to the rule requiring particularized case

3

The magistrate judge correctly noted that the plaintiff has failed to allege that
he was unable to freely practice his religion as a result of the defendant's actions.

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law to defeat an officer's claim to qualified immunity).4 In this case, it cannot be said
that the defendant's conduct—although inappropriate—fell within the very core of what
the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit or that the conduct was "so bad" that
case law is not needed to establish its unconstitutionality. The "narrow exception" for
"obvious" constitutional violations does not apply to the peculiar facts of this case.
In some circumstances, "a general constitutional rule already identified in the
decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question, even
though the very action in question has [not] previously been held unlawful." United
States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271 (1997); see also Vinyard, 311 F.3d at 1351 (noting
that "some broad statements of principle in case law are not tied to particularized facts
and can clearly establish law applicable in the future to different sets of detailed facts").
In Vinyard, the Eleventh Circuit explained:
For example, if some authoritative judicial decision decides a case by
determining that "X Conduct" is unconstitutional without tying that
determination to a particularized set of facts, the decision on "X Conduct"
can be read as having clearly established a constitutional principle: put
differently, the precise facts surrounding "X Conduct" are immaterial to the
violation. These judicial decisions can control "with obvious clarity" a wide
variety of later factual circumstances. These precedents are hard to
distinguish from later cases because so few facts are material to the broad
legal principle established in these precedents; thus, this is why factual
differences are often immaterial to the later decisions. But for judge-made
law, there is a presumption against wide principles of law. And if a broad
principle in case law is to establish clearly the law applicable to a specific
set of facts facing a governmental official, it must do so "with obvious
clarity" to the point that every objectively reasonable government official

4

Although "obvious clarity" cases are the exception rather than the rule, the
Eleventh Circuit has sometimes found, in the context of an excessive force claim, that
the Fourth Amendment was clear enough by itself to put an officer on notice that his or
her conduct went "far beyond the hazy border between excessive and acceptable
force." E.g., Smith v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416, 1419 (11th Cir. 1997).

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facing the circumstances would know that the official's conduct did violate
federal [constitutional] law when the official acted.
Id. Here, it appears that no authoritative court has decided—as a broad principle—that
a correctional officer's disrespectful treatment of an inmate's religious property ("X
Conduct") was unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments even
when, as in this case, there is no allegation that such treatment burdened the inmate's
ability to practice his religion.
III.
The plaintiff having failed to establish the second prong of the qualified-immunity
inquiry, and having thus failed to defeat the defendant's claim to qualified immunity, it is
ORDERED:
1. The defendant's motion to dismiss (doc. 60) is GRANTED.
2. The plaintiff's complaint and this action are DISMISSED with prejudice.
3. The clerk shall enter judgment stating: "All claims are dismissed with
prejudice.
DONE AND ORDERED this

6th

day of

December

, 2012.

s/ William Stafford
WILLIAM STAFFORD
SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE